Notre Dame's Kelly named AP coach of year

Notre Dame's Brian Kelly was named the Associated Press college football coach of the year Wednesday. (Michael Conroy | Associated Press | File)

By RALPH D. RUSSOAssociated Press

Published: Wednesday, December 19, 2012 at 6:01 a.m.

Last Modified: Wednesday, December 19, 2012 at 11:16 p.m.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — After two seasons as Notre Dame coach, Brian Kelly decided he wasn’t spending enough time doing the best part of his job: coaching players.

Kelly changed that in 2012, and he shuffled his staff. Then, with Kelly more in tune to his team and the assistants in sync with the head coach, Notre Dame went from unranked to top-ranked.

For leading the Fighting Irish to the BCS championship game for the first time, Kelly was voted Associated Press college football coach of the year Wednesday.

“When you’re talking about the coach of the year, there’s so many things that go into it,” Kelly said. “I know it’s an individual award and it goes to one guy, but the feelings that I get from it is you’re building the right staff, that you’ve got the right players and to me that is a validation of the program. That you put together the right business plan.”

Kelly is the first Notre Dame coach to win the AP award, which started in 1998. Of course, the Irish haven’t played for a national championship since 1988 and spent much of the past two decades trying to find a coach who could restore a program that was becoming a relic of its proud past.

It turns out Kelly was the answer.

He arrived in 2010 after two decades spent climbing the coaching ladder and winning big everywhere he worked.

But in the world of college football, Notre Dame is a long way and a huge step up from Grand Valley State — where Kelly won a pair of Division II national titles — and Cincinnati, his previous stop, for that matter.

“I think the job tends to distract you,” Kelly said earlier this week. “There are a lot of things that pull you away from the primary reason why you want to be head coach of Notre Dame, and that is graduate your players and play for a national championship.”

Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged.